How to check a contractor's license in Washington (step by step)

A homeowner hands a “contractor” $9,000 as a deposit on a bathroom remodel. The guy demos the room in one weekend — then the texts slow down, the excuses pile up, and by week three the number’s disconnected. The bathroom sits gutted for six months. Some version of this story plays out every month around Snohomish County, and in almost every one of them, a two-minute license check would have killed the deal before any money moved.

Washington makes the check easy. Every legitimate contractor in the state is registered with the Department of Labor & Industries — L&I — and L&I’s whole file on them is public: registration status, bond, insurance, citations, even lawsuits filed against their bond. Here’s how to read that file like someone who’s been burned before.

Why does the license check matter so much?

Because in Washington, a registered contractor is a contractor you can actually go after. Registration means there’s a bond you can make a claim against, insurance on file, and a state agency tracking their infractions. Skip the check and you’re handing money to a stranger with a pickup and a Facebook page.

Washington doesn’t technically “license” contractors — it registers them, under the Contractor Registration Act, RCW 18.27. Registration is what puts the safety net in place: a surety bond, liability insurance, and an agency that keeps score. “Licensed, bonded, and insured” isn’t a slogan here — it’s a checklist you can pull up on your phone in the driveway.

The bond matters most. If a registered contractor takes your deposit and vanishes, or does work so bad it has to be torn out, the bond is the pot of money you can go after. Homeowners get two years from when the work was substantially completed or abandoned to file against it (RCW 18.27.040). No registration means no bond, no insurance requirement, no one watching — just small-claims court and good luck.

How do I look up a contractor in Washington?

Go to Washington L&I’s free Verify a Contractor, Tradesperson or Business tool and search by business name, owner’s name, UBI number, or the contractor’s registration number. The record shows registration status, bond, insurance, infractions, and lawsuits against the bond. It takes about two minutes.

1. Get their registration number first. Washington law requires contractors to show their current registration number in their ads, bids, contracts, and business cards (RCW 18.27.100). It’s a string of about a dozen letters and digits, usually starting with letters pulled from the business name. Can’t or won’t produce it? You’re done — move on.
2. Open the L&I lookup. The direct search sits at secure.lni.wa.gov/verify/. Type in the registration number, or search the business or owner name.
3. Match the record to the human. The business name and the owner listed on the record should line up with the person standing in your kitchen. A registration number borrowed from a buddy’s company is worthless to you — and letting someone work under another contractor’s registration is illegal (RCW 18.27.020).
4. Read the whole record, not just the status line. The sections below. L&I updates the database every weekday morning, so what you see is close to real time.

What should I look for in the L&I record?

Five things: the registration shows active and unexpired; a surety bond is on file — $30,000 for general contractors, $15,000 for specialty; liability insurance is on file; the infractions section; and the lawsuits-against-the-bond section. A clean record on all five is the baseline for hiring, not a gold star.

Registration status

You want “Active,” with an expiration date in the future. Expired, suspended, or revoked means they can’t legally advertise, bid, or do the work — doing any of it anyway is a gross misdemeanor under RCW 18.27.020. A suspended registration usually means the bond or insurance lapsed, which is its own warning sign.

The bond

General contractors carry a $30,000 surety bond; specialty contractors carry $15,000 (RCW 18.27.040). Those amounts went up on July 1, 2024 — they sat at $12,000 and $6,000 for years — so a contractor still quoting the old numbers hasn’t looked at their own paperwork lately. The bond is what pays out when a contractor stiffs workers, suppliers, or you. Check that it shows on file and current; if it’s canceled, the registration suspends automatically.

The insurance

Liability insurance is required to register: at minimum $50,000 for property damage and $100,000 to $200,000 for injuries (RCW 18.27.050). This is the money that responds when a crew floods your kitchen or drops a beam on your car. No insurance on file, no valid registration — the two are linked.

Infractions and citations

This section lists citations L&I has issued — working while unregistered, advertising without a number, permit violations. One old paperwork citation isn’t a character reference either way. A pattern of them is a personality test the contractor already failed.

Lawsuits against the bond

L&I keeps a public record of lawsuits filed against the contractor’s bond, and the lookup shows them. Each one is a customer or supplier who felt wronged enough to file in superior court. One suit from years ago, resolved — read into it and ask about it. Several suits is a trend, and judgments can eat into the bond itself, which leaves less protection for you.

What’s the difference between a general and a specialty contractor?

A general contractor can run a whole project and hire subcontractors across trades. A specialty contractor is registered in a single trade — roofing, painting, plumbing, HVAC — and can only legally perform that trade’s work. The required bond reflects the difference: $30,000 for generals, $15,000 for specialties.

Why you care: a guy registered only as a painting specialty can’t legally take on your whole kitchen remodel, no matter what his truck says. Match the registration type to the job you’re hiring for. And for electrical and plumbing work, the individual tradesperson needs their own state certification on top of the company’s registration — L&I’s tool verifies those too.

What are the red flags even a licensed contractor can show?

A clean L&I record is the floor, not the ceiling. Stay sharp for pressure to pay a big deposit up front, cash-only pricing, bids that come in at half of everyone else’s, no written contract, and any suggestion that the job doesn’t need permits. Each one is expensive.

• “Fifty percent down, and cash saves you the tax.” A big deposit is how the disappearing act gets funded. Pay for work as it’s done, on a written schedule tied to progress.
• “We don’t need to pull a permit for this.” For anything structural, electrical, or plumbing, that’s wrong — and the unpermitted work becomes your problem at resale, not theirs.
• The bid is half of the other two. Someone is skipping insurance, skipping permits, or planning to skip the second half of the job.
• No written contract, or a one-line “estimate” treated as the whole agreement.
• The truck, the bid, and the L&I record show three different names. Borrowed registrations are a real scam, and they’re illegal.

What if the contractor isn’t registered at all?

Don’t hire them. Advertising, bidding, or doing contractor work while unregistered is a gross misdemeanor in Washington (RCW 18.27.020), and an unregistered contractor legally can’t sue you to collect payment (RCW 18.27.080) — which tells you exactly how protected you’d be. There’s no bond to claim against and no required insurance.

If someone is already working for you and you discover there’s no registration, stop new work, stop paying, and get advice before you do anything else. Then report it: L&I investigates unregistered contractors, and homeowner reports are how most cases start. File one at lni.wa.gov/fraud or call 1-888-811-5974. Your report might be the one that saves the next house down the street.

Anything else before you sign?

Yes — make the check a habit, not a one-time audit. Two minutes per bid, every contractor, every time, even the one your neighbor loves. And if you’d rather skip the homework, this is what we do for homeowners around Everett: license, bond, insurance, and references checked.

Here’s what we check before recommending anyone, and it costs you nothing — Ascent Prime is free for homeowners. But whether you use us or not, run the check.